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The WCF goes from effectual calling to justification. Why does it skip regeneration?
Or is it wrapped up in chapter 14, saving faith? If so, why is it placed after justification?
The close identification of Effectual Calling with Regeneration in the Confession of Faith may be further observed in paragraph three of Chapter 10:
Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
Here it is clear, they are speaking to the question of how elect infants or persons unable of being outwardly called are effectually called. The word they use for this, however, is "regenerated." This indicates the close if not synonymous association of the two terms.
Secondly, notice also the language of Chapter 13, Of Sanctification:
They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them...
Here, the Confession uses the terms for effectual calling and regeneration as being synonymous by coupling them so closely together. It speaks of both of these as "having a new heart and new spirit created in them" which language was also used to describe the effectual calling in Chapter 10. From this it seems appaent, that the framers of the Confession of Faith saw effectual calling as one in the same with regeneration.
Of course there are esteemed brothers here much more competent in this subject than am I, and I welcome them to correct me if I am in anything amiss.
I would not venture to speak for why modern theologians have divided effectual calling and regeneration. My default assumption is that it owes to the incipient Arminianism inherent in that mindset.So is effectual calling and regeneration being synonymous a 17th century understanding of the ordo salutis? Current systematic theologies split them.
Or perhaps just a more economical way of writing for a confession?